Understanding, installing, and configuring the Slack for Zendesk Support integration

The Slack for Zendesk Support is a Built by Zendesk integration that allows you to interact with Zendesk Support tickets in your Slack channels. It is available on the Support Team, Professional, and Enterprise plans.

The integration includes the following features:

Ticket event notifications in Slack: Slack users can see information about Zendesk Support ticket events in specified Slack channels. High-level ticket information is displayed (subject, description, priority, assignee, and creation time). Ticket notifications can be filtered based on event type; and based on groups Support groups. See Viewing ticket notifications in Slack for more information.

Channel configuration: Slack admins can map Zendesk Support groups to Slack channels. This allows tickets to be routed to the right channel. Additionally, it is possible to choose the specific ticket event types to appear in Slack, reducing noise and letting admins prevent sensitive data from being posted in Slack. See Configuring and editing the integration, below, for more information.

Creating new tickets directly from Slack: This feature is designed to cater to an internal use case where Slack users want to raise a new Support ticket directly from Slack, which they can do using a slash command. See Creating new Support tickets for more information.

Creating and assigning a requester: When an unrecognized user creates a Zendesk Support ticket in Slack, a new Zendesk Support end-user is created and assgned to them. Similarly, when an agent creates a ticket on behalf of someone else, they can select a requester from a list of existing users, or choose to create a new end-user for them.

Answer Bot for Slack: This integration is included in the Slack for Zendesk Support integration, and utilises Answer Bot to listen on selected Slack channels. It resolves questions by providing article suggestions from your Guide knowledge base.

Note: We recommend you select All Public Channels, which simplifies the post-installation configuration process. You can configure specific public and private channels later.

Click Install.

Once the installation is complete, you'll be redirected to Slack, and can begin the configuration process.

Note: If your Slack Approve apps permission setting is off, you can potentially break the integration when another instance is installed. We recommend turning on the Approve apps setting in Slack, or advising your Slack users to not reinstall the integration.

Configuring and editing the integration

Channel notifications are configured from Slack via direct conversation with the Zendesk app. Only Slack admins can configure channel notifications.

To configure the Slack for Zendesk Support integration

In your Slack account, view the direct message from the integration, and click Get started.

Using the drop-down menu, select a channel to configure. If you're configuring the integration from within a channel, that channel is selected by default, and you can scroll through the Channels list, or type a channel name to filter your options.

Using the Please choose a type drop-down menu, select the types of notifications you want to receive in this channel. You can select multiple notifications. When you’ve selected your notifications, click Done.

Using the next Choose an option drop-down menu, select the support group(s) that have permission to post notifications in the channel. Support groups are used to categorize tickets, and restrict agent access based on group membership. By mapping groups to channels, administrators can ensure only relevant ticket events are posted to channels, and can exclude groups that have tickets with sensitive data.

By default, no groups are selected . You must select at least one group so they can post to the channel and for updates to be posted in the channel.

Click Done.

Note: It may take 10-15 minutes for a channel to appear in the Slack for Zendesk Support app.

From the Zendesk app’s direct message stream, you can add the app to another channel, edit existing settings, change the subdomain associated with the app, and provide feedback to Zendesk about the app.

To add the app to another public channel

In Slack, click Zendesk in the Apps section and send a message to start a direct message with the app.

You may need to change the subdomain associated with the integration, if, for instance, you are renaming your Zendesk Support subdomain, or moving the integration from a sandbox to a production instance.

To change your subdomain

In Slack, click Zendesk in the Apps section to start a direct message with the app.

Click Change subdomain.

Enter the new subdomain, read and confirm the Zendesk terms and conditions, then click Next.

Zendesk is collecting feedback about the integration. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

To provide feedback on the integration

In Slack, click Zendesk in the Apps section to start a direct message with the app.

Click Provide feedback.

Use the feedback form to enter your comments, and answer any or all of the integration-related questions.

Click Submit.

FAQ

This section covers the following questions about using and troubleshooting the Slack for Zendesk Support integration.

Installation questions

I've installed the Zendesk app in my Slack account and I don't see the Zendesk actions?

The app needs to be invited to a channel to work. You can invite the Zendesk app to a channel by clicking on the settings cog inside the Slack channel and selecting "Add apps".

Is Enterprise Grid supported?

It is not supported in the current version. If the integration is installed on Enterprise Grid, the Zendesk app will work only one workspace.

Configuring the integration

Can I connect multiple Zendesk accounts to a Slack workspace?

The current version allows connecting a single Zendesk subdomain to a workspace. We are planning to support multiple Zendesk subdomains in the future.

Can the ticket notification information be customized?

Notification information is not customizable.

Can the integration be used in a shared channel in Slack?

Unfortunately our integration isn't supported in shared channels due to the integration method used (workspace tokens). We're in the process of moving to another method which will be released later in 2020.

Is it possible to send only a certain priority level ticket to the slack channel selected? We'd like to only alert the team for High priority tickets that come in, and only on creation. I created a duplicate trigger for this and used the same json but add my conditions. It doesn't appear to be working. And now I'm not able to activate the original trigger automatically created when you install.

Hi Jamie, Thanks for including those conditions! So, you've got priority all set. You may just want to bump the Ticket // Is // Created up to the ALL conditions and remove the Ticket // Is // Updated condition, if you do only want the trigger to fire for newly created tickets.

I have these conditions below in a trigger I create that cloned the trigger that gets automatically created (I wasn't able to edit that one). I don't see any notifications in Slack though. We set this up about an hour ago. Is there a delay maybe?

Can you pop into Settings->API->Target Failures the next time the integration fails and check into if you see a matching failure for your Slack endpoint there? If so, there should be an error message which might help.

Are you attempting to add this internal comment directly within the agent interface? Are you able to replicate this error in a Chrome Incognito Window? Additionally, does this occur with all tickets you attempt to update with an internal note or just a select few? If you have another agent available it may be worth having them try adding an internal note to see if this error comes up again. It may also be worth temporarily disabling any Zendesk apps you may have installed from your account to see if any of those could be interfering with your ticket functions. More on managing apps in our Managing your installed apps article.

I thought it was obvious since I left the comment under this particular article but I was talking about Slack integration. After attempting to add a new internal note I get this message:I've tried to find some clue in Settings/API/Target failures but there are no records coming from the Slack app.

Hi I am having some trouble with the Slack / Zendesk integration as well. I can create a new ticket from slack but I am not receiving notifications in slack when a new zendesk ticket is created outside of slack (e.g. emailing our support)

@Sergii this doesn't look expected so I'm going to create a ticket on your behalf and send this over to Support for further assistance. Most likely we will need to grab a couple of ticket examples and follow up with you in this ticket. You should receive an email shortly after the ticket has been created.

@Jlarin can you confirm your Slack trigger is active in your account under Admin>Business Rules>Triggers. This trigger should have automatically been created after setting up the Slack integration. You'll also want to make sure you've followed the instructions listed under Configuring the initial installation as you'll need to make sure you've configured your Slack channels appropriately.

Thanks for the quick reply. I am not seeing anything recent in Admin>Business Rules>Triggers (I do see ones from last year for Notify requester of received request). In the Slack channel I am trying to configure the button seems unresponsive when I click Edit Existing settings / Add channel in slack

This error typically pops up if you're on the starter or essential plan with Support. To have access to public apps within our Marketplace you would at least need to be on the team plan. More information on available features on your current plan can be found on our Plan Comparison page which I've attached.

I have one problem with Slack integration. Currently it posts all the messages including Auto Reply message of Facebook Page and Translate.com integration. So they are quite annoyed. Is there any way to get rid of them?

When installing the integration there should be a Slack trigger that's automatically created which will pass information over to your Slack channel. If you edit that trigger you should be able to include certain conditions that prevent this trigger from firing on those tickets. If your Facebook tickets are being tag as well as tickets from translate.com you can edit the trigger to exclude any tickets that contain that tag. Otherwise you can add the Channel > is not > Facebook Message/Post/Web Service (API) conditions to your Slack trigger as well.